TIG candidate defects to LibDems – Umunna’s response has to be seen to be believed

Serious self-awareness failure

The Scottish Times’ Kieran Andrews tweeted this morning that the ‘lead Scottish candidate’ of Change UK (CUK, formerly TIG) in next week’s European Parliament elections has defected to the LibDems.

It’s a heavy blow to the hapless quitter outfit after a series of blunders and racism scandals.

But CUK spokesperson Chuka Umunna compounded the situation with yet another blunder, by demonstrating the lack of self-awareness that has competed with incompetence to be CUK’s defining feature.

Umunna responded to McDonald’s departure:

It is obviously disappointing that this candidate has chosen to pledge allegiance to another party – he has let down his fellow candidates and activists.

SKWAWKBOX view:

Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with TIG/CUK’s short history will be well aware that it formed by the merger of a number of MPs who quit the Tory and Labour Parties – with the added nonsense of promptly saying they would prop up Theresa May to avoid an election.

The only way McDonald could have been more like Umunna and co would have been to get elected as a TIG candidate first and then switch to the LibDems and refuse to give the public a say on it.

But given CUK’s polling, that’s a highly unlikely scenario, of course.

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I expect I’m the only one here who didn’t already know this…
insert troll here:

… but ‘hap’ is a word of Norse origin meaning ‘luck’ – so ‘hapless’ just means ‘luckless’.
I don’t think bad luck has much to do with them losing supporters 🙂
There’ll be those who hoped to gain something by ‘getting in on the ground floor’ of a new party desperate for candidates to field.
Those people will have joined hoping it will take off.
Once they’re inside it’d be hard not to notice that support isn’t growing.
Even the clueless can count.

Yes. It’s interesting. Perhaps it’s to do with the confusion between the essential Tory and Labour standpoints – so a Party that pretends to both misses an important distinction. The flitters mistook the usual electoral moaning for substance instead of what it is – just moaning.

There’s a difference between listening to and clocking the moans and trying to be all things to all people.

It’s no surprise TIG / TINGE / CUK / whatever have failed to take off and are now a public joke along the lines of MK Dons or scientology.

They represent everything that people hate about politics – no conviction PR nonsense – just the same cocktail of privatisation, support for the Saudis and austerity – which repels Labour voters, a lack of patriotism and traditional values – which repels the right, and a nasty authoritarian self serving hypocritical streak – which repels everyone who is already not disgusted with them.

The sooner this lot are completely consigned to the dustbin the better. I cannot possibly think of any circumstance where the country will improve from the likes of Gapes, Tingela Smith, Umuna or Soubry having any influence whatsoever.